Ghosting Doubles, Chorales, Frankie and Johnnie 2017-2018

In this biennium I completed the next large segment of the Études d'exécution imminent, being the three parts collected as "Illustrations": Ghosting Doubles, Chorales, and Frankie and Johnnie. Though quite varied in texture and surface rhetoric, they have in common the notion, introduced in the Corollaries, of treating the generating row forms as a row of interval types, and of introducing, in each case, an extra-systematic element, from which the systematically derived intervals hang, or are stacked, as the case may be. 

Karen at the Oregon Trail Museum,
Baker City, Oregon

In the case of Ghosting Doubles that extra-systematic element is a melody by my local colleague Amy Denio, originally for accordion, called Ghosting. I composed three versions, or "sightings" on Amy's melody; one for each transposition of the row form. Each such sighting consists of two polyphonically presented lines, one above Amy's tune and one below. One performance possibility I am particularly fond of is to begin with just the melody, the play the melody with just one of the derived lines, then with the other, then *just* the derived lines (the original melody "ghosting" them, as it were), and then with all three together.

For the 12 Chorales I used various schemes of cycling through portions of the row forms in groups of three intervals, using those intervals to generate the pitches harmonizing each note in a chorale tune, which tunes were chosen from the justly famous Bach-Riemenschneider collection of Bach chorales. I chose the particular chorale tunes non-systematically, but basically I was looking for a variety of keys and, especially, a variety of phrase lengths. In all but one or two cases I kept the chorale tune in its original key, only transposing it if my generated harmonizations extended off the bottom of the keyboard.

your blogger at Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Frankie and Johnnie is, of course, based on the titular traditional American blues ballad. I used the collection of verses found in a "Songs of the 1890s" songbook, but notated the melody, and its rhythm, without specific pitches or duration values. The accompaniment is based on a scheme of cycling through the instant row form depending the intervals from the integers of that row form treated as pitch-classes. At least that's what I think I was doing. In my conception of how it might be performed it is a bit like my folk-song opera Old Bangum (2007), that is, an opera in which the person of the character is played by the song, with music providing commentary, scenery, and support as that persona-song enacts its tale of woe.

Karen at The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

And we continued Banned Rehearsal and Gradus. Banned Rehearsal recorded sessions 926-948 in 2017, incorporating Telepaths 53-58 to pull Aaron in from Alaska, and 949-972 in 2018, with Telepaths 59-61. Neal recorded Gradus sessions 305-324 in 2017 and 325-342 in 2018. In addition I continued occasionally improvising solo sessions and making field recordings. I gave two recitals in early 2018. The first, in February, was the fifth entry in my cycle of "Preludes in Seattle", performing Kam Morrills Puppet Pieces, Benjamin Boretz's Partita, My Two Pomes Play and 17 Prepuntal Contraludes, numbers 17-20 of Ken Benshoof's Patti's Parlour Pieces, and the respective Preludes 17-20 of Lockrem Johnson, Ken Benshoof, Greg, Short, and me. In March I presented the Études d'execution imminent up to where I had completed them, being the first 8 ("Preface"), Second Thoughts and Corollaries ("Commentary"), and the three sightings of Ghosting Doubles.

your blogger at Isa Lake, at the
Continental Divide, Yellowstone
National Park, Wyoming

2018 also marked the passing of my father, Carl Richard (Dick) Eisenbrey, March 1, 1926 - July 8, 2018, from congestive heart failure, after having surviving several heart attaches in the months preceding. My brothers and I spent quite a bit of time with him and mom in the last few months, and found ourselves trying to quickly find a safe haven for mom, who was suffering from Alzheimers. Fortunately we able to find a wonderful facility in Oak Harbor, some miles north of Freeland, where they had been living for the last few years. 

Early that June Karen and I did break away from the stress of that time for a week to travel once again (and probably for the last time) to Yellowstone National Park. We had a good time, stopping on the way in at Baker City to visit the Oregon Trail Museum, and spending a day in Philipsburg, Montana on the way home. We had passed by this picturesque little town the last time we were there, in 2008, and I was glad we took the time to stop for a while. We stayed in Jackson, and took in our usual favorite sites, including Old Faithful on a particularly blustery day (hang on to your britches dear!) that had the geyser blowing sideways. We timed our trip so that we could pick up our son John from college at Eastern Washington University, in Cheney, on the last leg home.

Banned Playout:

2017:
Numbered 926-948 12:00:38
Telepaths 53-58 4:00:50

Total 2017: 16:01:28

2018:
Numbered 949-972 12:29:46
Telepaths 59-61 2:00:06

Total 2018: 14:29:52

Grand Total: 909:25:54